The fringe

I love it when I accidentally wind up in a city at the same time as a festival, and I arrived in Edinburgh smack in the middle of the Fringe Festival, which is an arts festival involving street performances, dramas, comedies, magic shows, musicals singing...and freshly made donuts.  Donuts so fresh you watch them make them after you order them.  Delicious.

Upper left: This guy would stand perfectly still for tips.  It was so perfect, he looked like a painted statue.  I just had to have a picture (I paid him for it, don't panic).

Upper right: I'm not sure what show they belonged to but this creepy duo would sneak up on you to give you their flyers while playing super eerie accordion music.

Lower left: Some people stood around shoving unwanted flyers in your face, which is massively annoying, but others found creative ways to get you to take the flyers from them.  Like this group that pretended to sleep in the middle of the street.

Lower right: The one place in all of Europe that tried to card me...and I had stopped carrying my ID weeks ago.  Luckily neither me nor Anna nor Julia actually wanted to get in.

Greyfriar's Bobby

Many years ago the police in Edinburgh were told to each a buy a dog to take on patrol with them at night.  Most of them bought "scary" dogs, but John Gray had taken a different approach to his work.  Instead of working through intimidation, he had tried to get to know the people in the area and gain their trust, so he also bought a dog, but it was a terrier.  A cute terrier named Bobby.

Castles and Haggis: It's Scotland!

Scotland is absolutely beautiful.  It's green, there's cliff's everywhere, and there's centuries of architecture smooshed into Edinburgh.

Scotland: Land of the Fandoms

Edinburgh has been the inspiration for so many authors.  How could it not be?  Look at this freaking awesome castle and all the places in the city that you can see it!

The art of accidentally meeting people

Ok, I'll let you all in on a little secret: I wasn't that fond of Northern Ireland.

So Sunday morning, I got up bright and early and headed for the bus stop so that I could be whisked to the ferry that would take me away to Scotland.

I was lucky enough to meet fellow Mid-Westerner David at the bus stop because then I had a ferry buddy for the trip!  (Even if poor David was never supposed to be on my ferry to begin with...long story.)

We split in Glasgow so I could go to Edinburgh and find out what the Fringe Festival is all about and he could go on down to Liverpool to see the home of the Beatles (as I understand it to be, anyway).  

Scotland was beautiful!  Just look at that upper right corner of the collage.  It's threatening to storm but there's still and abundance of bright green trees and comforting purple heather.  At least I think that's called heather....

My good luck continued when I walked into my amazing hostel to find I would not be the only girl in my dorm!!!  Yay!!!!  Not only that, but Sam invited me to go out with her and her two new friends (Anna and Julia), all of whom turn out to be fangirls of one kind or another.  

Needless to say this has led to a lot of really excited Harry Potter/Supernatural/Doctor Who/Sherlock talk!